Tsuna's mother is assassinated when he's one and a half, so he gets taken to Italy by his father. Iemitsu is a very busy man, though, so little Tsuna is raised mostly by his cousins – Vongola Nono's sons – and the household staff. He grows very close to all four of them, but then when he's six the cradle happens, and his father chooses to send him back to Japan to live with his mother's sister – who's a successful artist – rather than keep him in Italy where the Family's enemies have suddenly become more bold with Xanxus' disappearance.
Seven
There was a little boy huddling in a concealed corner of a warehouse, shivering from cold and fear. He could hear his pursuers through the spaces between the boxes he hid behind, footsteps easily audible to his sensitive ears. Another boy might make some sound, maybe breathe too harshly and draw attention to himself, but this boy had been taught how to behave when hiding.
Breathe lightly, said a quiet voice in his memories, don't move, keep your eyes mostly closed so light can't bounce off them. Tsuna could almost hear his cousin's voice, a smooth tenor that hardly ever rose higher than a whisper. Federico was like a shadow, and he'd taught Tsuna the beginnings of his art. Keep your ears open, little lion, don't lose track of where the enemy is, be prepared to run when hiding is a lost cause, only fight when you cannot run away.
Tsuna had asked how he would ever win a fight if he always hid or ran first, and Enrico had laughed from where he was watching his younger brother teach. Don't worry about winning, he'd said with a smirk, his voice rough from smoking and yelling at trainees all day, you're young yet, little lion, if fighting is needed we'll be there to do it for you. Then he'd gone on to teach Tsuna a couple basic moves for getting out of a hold, in case he was ever caught alone.
Tsuna wished Enrico was here to fight for him.
He heard whispers from a few feet away, a pair of his tormentors pausing to argue about whether he was still here. When they agreed he must have gotten away, he almost breathed a sigh of relief, but he'd been taught better than that, so he waited until the footsteps revealed that all seven older boys had left the warehouse before he moved. Still pulling on Federico's lessons, Tsuna slipped through the shadows and out of the building, hurrying home in the gathering dark.
His auntie Emi greeted him with a smile and bade him wash up for dinner. She gave no comment about the lateness of the hour, but then that was usual. Tsuna wondered what she thought he was doing when he didn't come home until so late at night.
He was eight and his aunt was disappointed in him.
It wasn't his fault, really, he just didn't understand what the teachers wanted. Japanese had always been hard for him, since he'd spent his first six years mostly in Italy, speaking Italian. He could speak it just fine, but memorizing all these symbols was so difficult! He was fine with romanji, why did he have to learn katakana and hiragana and kanji?
His aunt didn't get it, though; he was Japanese, so he should be able to learn it just fine, right?
He missed Massimo.
The second brother had always been able to teach him things best. Massimo said he was a Tactile Learner, so he learned differently. He always had lessons in different places, like the garden or the greenhouses, and he'd walk him through a book and then let him take a break. School was so long and boring! They had to sit at desks and listen to the teacher go on and on, and the stuff they said just didn't stick! And the books were all in Japanese, so he didn't understand it very well, and it only got worse as he got older and the books got more complicated. At this rate he would be failing all the time soon, and his aunt would only get more disappointed.
A/N: Can't find a good cover page for this. I'd want it to have the Ninth's sons and Tsuna, and there just doesn't seem to be much of that.